The New Testament consists of 27 books, traditionally divided into four categories: the Gospels, Acts, the Epistles, and Revelation. There are four Gospels, one book of Acts, 21 Epistles or letters, and one book of Revelation. Together, these writings form the second major section of the Christian Bible, following the Old Testament.
The New Testament contains approximately 180,000 Greek words, organized into 260 chapters and 7,959 verses. In terms of word count, it represents roughly one-quarter of the Christian Bible, rather than three-quarters. The Old Testament accounts for the larger share of the Bible's total text, although the exact proportions vary somewhat depending on the language and biblical tradition being measured.
The four Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—tell the story of Jesus Christ, including his ministry, teachings, death, and resurrection. Although Matthew appears first in the New Testament, most scholars believe that Mark was the earliest of the four Gospels, probably written around 65–75 CE, with many scholars placing it close to 70 CE. Matthew and Luke are generally dated somewhat later, often around 80–90 CE, while John is commonly dated toward the end of the first century, approximately 90–100 CE. These dates remain subjects of scholarly debate.
Matthew, Mark, and Luke are known as the Synoptic Gospels because they share considerable material, structure, and perspective and can therefore be read together. One influential explanation for their similarities is the Two-Source Hypothesis. This proposes that Matthew and Luke independently used Mark as one of their sources and also drew upon another hypothetical source known as Q. Q is thought to have contained sayings or teachings of Jesus but has never been discovered as an independent document. Not all scholars accept this hypothesis, however, and alternative explanations for the relationship between the Gospels have been proposed. The idea that Matthew and Luke were written before Mark is a minority position.
The Gospels were written in Koine Greek, the common form of Greek used throughout much of the eastern Mediterranean world during this period. Some scholars believe that traditions underlying the Gospels may have circulated earlier in Aramaic, the language widely spoken in first-century Judea and Galilee. However, the surviving Gospel texts themselves are Greek. It is therefore important to distinguish between possible earlier oral or written traditions and the Greek texts that have come down to us.
The four Gospels also appear to have been directed toward somewhat different communities and audiences. Matthew contains a particularly strong emphasis on Jewish scripture and traditions and is often understood to have emerged from a community with substantial Jewish-Christian roots. Luke, by contrast, places considerable emphasis on the inclusion of Gentiles and the universal significance of Jesus' message. These are broad scholarly interpretations rather than definitive descriptions of the intended readership.
An important feature of the New Testament is that the Pauline letters predate the Gospels. Paul's letters are the earliest surviving Christian writings contained in the New Testament. Seven letters are widely accepted by scholars as genuinely written by Paul, while the authorship of several others traditionally attributed to him remains disputed.
Among the earliest Pauline letters are 1 Thessalonians and Galatians, generally dated to the late 40s or early 50s CE. 1 Thessalonians, often dated to approximately 49–51 CE, is widely regarded as one of the earliest surviving Christian writings. The precise dating and order of Paul's letters remain subjects of scholarly debate, so it is safer to identify these letters as among the earliest rather than claim that they are definitively the first and second oldest.
Paul's letters provide an unusually early window into the beliefs, disputes, and practices of the first Christian communities. They were written only a few decades after the death of Jesus and before the Gospel narratives were committed to their surviving written forms. They also demonstrate that important theological and organizational questions—such as the relationship between Jewish and Gentile followers of Jesus, the meaning of Jesus' death and resurrection, and the nature of Christian communities—were already being debated within the first generation of the movement.
Taken as a whole, the New Testament is therefore not a single work written at one time by a single author. It is a collection of writings produced over several decades by different authors and communities. Rather than being the product of a single “school of thought,” the texts reflect a variety of early Christian traditions, perspectives, and communities, even though they share a common focus on Jesus and the developing Christian movement.
The New Testament's writings span the period from the generation immediately following Jesus through the expanding Christian movement of the late first century. The individual books were written, circulated, copied, and eventually gathered into the collection that Christians came to recognize as the second major canon of Christian Scripture.
The result is a remarkably diverse collection: four distinct accounts of Jesus' life and teachings, an account of the early Christian movement in Acts, letters addressing theology and community life, and the highly symbolic apocalyptic vision of Revelation. Together, these writings became the foundation of Christian theology and profoundly influenced Western history, literature, philosophy, law, art, and political thought.
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